Brainmill

Six quick memory games for numbers, patterns and shapes. Each round takes a few seconds, and every game gets harder as you get better. They started as something to play between sets in my gym tracker; Brainmill is the same games on their own. Free, no account, nothing to install.

THE GAMES

Digit Span and Reverse Span: Memorise a number, then type it back, or type it backwards. Long numbers are split into blocks, and the answer slots keep the same spacing, so the chunks you learnt still help.

Spot Check: Glance at a grid of shapes. Only once it's gone does the question appear: how many were sky blue? Which colour came up most?

Afterburn: Hold a pattern of cells in your head, then tap it back in. At higher levels the cells have shades, and each tap steps through them, so it's still a one-thumb game.

Circuit: Shapes flash up one at a time. Then pick the run you saw from four near misses: two shapes swapped, or one shape changed, the ways a memory actually slips.

Twin Set: Learn where the pairs are on a face-up board, turn it over, and find them from memory. Three wrong guesses end the board. Higher levels bring bigger boards and pairs that look more alike, until a card differs from its neighbour by its fill alone.

ONE DIAL FOR EVERYTHING

The same − and + sets the level in all six games, whether that means more digits or a bigger grid.